I can see why he bested Colette. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that the gap in skill level was so stark that he was able to capture her alive instead of kill her.
“Well, shit. That’s some powerful magic you’ve got there,” I told him.
Pearlman’s red eyes flickered with a smile as he answered, “My abilities are a gift from our god Dia Milus, bestowed upon us devoted followers.”
“Ohh, they were bequeathed to ya, eh?” I joked.
But behind his calm voice was a tone that evoked a sense of excitement.
Gift from god…my ass. I didn’t know just how seriously I should take the deranged ramblings of a cultist, but if there really was some way to attain that much power…then that made things much more dangerous.
“You’ve got more tricks up your sleeve, right? Show me what your god’s divine protection is made of. It might get ya a little more attention than a botched kidnapping.”
“You impudent child… Allow me to seal your vile lips shut for all eternity.”
I tried to provoke him…but it didn’t seem to work. He had a short temper, but he was more the lose my mind quietly and calmly in an insane fury type.
Okay, what do we do now? It’s a bit of a headache that the techniques I cultivated in my past life have no effect on him.
Guess that can only mean one thing: I’ll have to make do with the powers I’ve attained in this life.
In other words, magic. Pound him head-on with it. This is what I’ve been refining it for.
Pearlman grunted in surprise. “So young…and yet so powerful. So you really do have the divine protection of that false god Eltania…”
“Yeah, well, I am blessed with talent. I won’t deny that.”
Anger showed on Pearlman’s face when I released my magic energy. I suppose from their point of view, it really was Eltania’s divine protection at play.
It breaks my heart to have all my hard work denied by a stupid hair color. Well… I didn’t really mean that. After all, I did all that hard work because I had talent to begin with—it’s only natural.
And that was why, in my past life, I’d let go of what I didn’t have found a different path to pursue. Use all the tools at your disposal. But quickly determine which tools you can’t use. That was my way.
I cloaked myself in magic energy and bent my knees. Then I kicked off the ground. A crack formed in the stone floor as my feet sank slightly into it. I converted all that energy into propulsion and shot right toward my enemy.
To put it bluntly, all this God shit was driving me up the wall. All that mattered was that Pearlman was standing in my way, and I had to beat him. And while I certainly didn’t mind a little craziness, right now I was rather enjoying my peaceful life. I wasn’t gonna let him jeopardize it.
Pearlman grunted bitterly. Maybe the speed of my bull rush caught him off guard. He failed his arm around to counter me, point-blank. His gaze was still steady and strong, but it lacked the cool confidence he had when he was anticipating my moves and discreetly dodging them.
With subtle movements of my head, I dodged the flying arrows. Since he was aiming with such exact precision, all I had to do to avoid getting hit was slightly alter my trajectory.
“Right back at ya, buddy!”
As I ran, I shot magic energy out of my hands. It was the same spell he had blocked with his wall of ice earlier. Naturally, if it hit him, the damage would be more than light. However—
“Not happening.”
He easily blocked my attack, just as he had the first time. But that was exactly what I wanted—him doing that was all part of the plan.
I blasted another magic orb at the right side of his ice wall. But that really was all I had done. I wasn’t yet able to do anything fancy like make my magic attack curve its trajectory at the end.
“That’s your move?!”
But that was also exactly what I wanted.
Let’s just call it something coming from inside the wall. All living beings, not just people, have the instinct to follow movement with their eyes. And in a battle where one missed punch or kick can spell defeat, it’s very difficult to discern at a glance what something is.
Consequently, magic is nothing more than a diversion. I ran up the ice wall and jumped over it.
“What?!” Astonishment filled Pearlman’s cool face. His reaction speed was superb, but he had already missed his window to actually do anything about it.
“Nngh!”
My heavy dropkick met his left shoulder, breaking the bones. I landed as he sank and grabbed his left arm without skipping a beat.
“Ryaaah!”
Then I spun him around by the robe, smashing him to the ground!
His shoulder ripped out of its socket, and his muscles split on impact with the hard stone floor.
I had completely disabled his arms. That had to hurt like hell.
I jumped away, putting distance between us. It would be great if he would just give up then and there—the only reason I entertained that thought was because I had the feeling this was far from over.
“How dare you…! You’re just God’s Bitch!”
Pearlman rose to his feet, his arms dangling by his side. He swayed like a ghost, his face filled with wrath, and his eyes bloodshot with red lightning. At a glance, you could tell he was an anomaly. This guy just got crazier by the minute.
The fall to his back had messed up his breathing. Between his broken left arm and his dislocated right, whose muscles were torn, he should have been in too much agony to talk. And yet he had gotten to his feet without skipping a beat, even cursing me out as he did. That could only be possible if—
“Aha. You must not feel pain. That’s convenient.”
—pain simply did not exist to him. There was no other explanation for it.
That’s how he was able to keep fighting to the death. And if that power also came from his god, then his god sure was a taskmaster.
At any rate, I don’t get the sense that this is over yet.
Both of Pearlman’s arms, which should have been immobilized, shot up to the heavens.
“O, our mighty god, Dia Milus! I offer mine eyes as an offering unto thee! Please bestow upon your lowly servant the power with which to smite this hellhound!”
Pearlman shoved his thumbs into his eyes. And to answer his scream, the eyes of the serpent deity etched on his pendant glowed red.
“Wha…?!” Albert and Colette gasped in horror. I was also feeling sick over the absurd turn of events.
But the next thing we knew, bloodred magic rose from Pearlman’s body like smoke. Having little time to stop and stare, I fired a couple magic test shots at him. But a giant red lump of ice, its color reminiscent of blood, materialized to shield him. And this time, the lump of ice did not shatter. This proved it was clearly imbued with much more magic energy than the last.
“Wh-where is all his power coming from…?”
“What sort of ominous magic is that…?!”
Colette and Albert both shuddered at his might. And I didn’t blame them. Even I had never faced an opponent with that much magic.
I could have run away if I’d known he was unbeatable from the outset. That was a wise way to live if you wanted to survive.
But leave my friends…my royal friends, at that? Now that was beyond absurd.
Therefore, I stay and fight. That’s all there is to it.